The Next Turn: Work, AI, and Human Expectations

The way we work has changed. Most leadership advice hasn’t.

Across every industry, leaders are feeling the pressure.

A role stays open for months. High performers leave after two years. Teams clash over flexibility, accountability, and communication. Employees question systems that once felt normal. At the same time, AI is quietly reshaping how work gets done, compressing effort, accelerating output, and changing what organizations value.

Most leaders are trying to solve these as separate problems.

They are not separate.

In The Next Turn, leadership consultant and author Jeff Utecht argues that we are living through a double transition:

• The definition of work is changing, driven most visibly by Gen Z.
• The structure of work is changing, accelerated by AI.

For the first time in modern history, leaders are being asked to lead across multiple generations with fundamentally different beliefs about work while the very nature of work itself is being restructured underneath them.

This book gives leaders the language, frameworks, and perspective to understand what is actually happening—and what to do about it.

Inside, you’ll explore:

• Why traditional leadership instincts no longer produce the same results
• The hidden generational beliefs shaping workplace conflict
• Why Gen Z is redefining loyalty, growth, flexibility, and success
• How AI is changing productivity, trust, and performance evaluation
• Why “good work” is no longer obvious
• The rise of judgment as the new leadership advantage
• How leaders can create alignment when old assumptions no longer hold

This is not a book about managing a difficult generation.
And it is not a book about AI tools.

It is a book about leadership during one of the largest transitions in the history of work.

Because what worked before is not automatically going to work next.

And the leaders who thrive in this next era will not be the ones who cling hardest to the past or chase every new trend. They will be the ones who can make sense of the transition, create clarity inside uncertainty, and help people move from friction to flow.

The Next Turn is for leaders, managers, educators, entrepreneurs, and organizations trying to understand what work is becoming—and how to lead what comes next.